


I'm A Little Bit Lost Without You

by SEHale



Category: SKAM (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, F/M, Fluff, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-29
Updated: 2017-06-29
Packaged: 2018-11-20 22:53:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,279
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11344776
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SEHale/pseuds/SEHale
Summary: Based on the prompt: “I’m a new hire and you’re trying to show me how to use the espresso machine. I actually already know how to use it, but I’m pretending to be incompetent so that you’ll keep talking to me. Please don’t fire me.”AU where Sana works part time at a coffee shop to earn money while studying at university, and new hire Yousef is taking up another barista job for the summer while kindergarten is out.





	I'm A Little Bit Lost Without You

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you guys like this one, also feel free to send me some prompts you like to fill!

Summer. The chance to relax, go home, sleep in until noon, eat ice cream twice a day and call it a meal, summer. 

Not for Sana though.

Summer meant studying and working. Being a neurosurgeon wasn’t easy work, and despite the deep desire to go home and mess around on her laptop while eating her mother’s cooking from the couch, the deeper need to actually have money was greater. Working 26 hours a week whilst taking summer classes isn’t the most fun use of her time, but if it means her life will be easier in the future, Sana’s more than ready to do it.

**Noora** : Sana bean, you coming home this summer? <3

Sana smiled to herself, opening the message and feeling a little twinge settle near her heart. She missed her friends, she missed seeing Eva’s ever changing wardrobe and hairstyles, she missed catching Noora’s quiet smiles to herself in the middle of the crowd of girls, she missed hearing Vilde’s loud comments and her louder, pure laughter, she missed Chris’s tight, loving hugs. She missed the scent of her mother in her room, the booming voice of her father from the kitchen, the childish fights she got into with her brother in the backyard. She missed it all, but soon she would come back.

**Sana** : Working through summer here, will try to come back for the weekend soon. Miss you too <3

Sana sent the message meaning every word, throwing her phone in her bag as she turned to check the time on the wall in the kitchen.

11:45. Shit, Sana’s shift starts in 15 minutes. Grabbing her keys, she bolted the door behind her and walked briskly to work. She had a long day ahead of her, she was training the manager’s new hire for the summer.

*

Yousef checked his watch a couple times as he took a sip from his bottle of water. First days anywhere were always nerve wrecking, and despite having worked at a coffee shop many times before back home, for some reason Yousef felt more anxious than usual. With the kids off for the summer, Yousef had a choice to make. Either spend limitless days watching TV, taking the well-deserved time off to enjoy himself, see the city and play basketball. The other option was work. In the end, it wasn’t really a choice. He needed to pay for rent somehow this summer rather than blow through his savings like last year, and working at the local coffee store wasn’t the worst way to earn a little extra cash.

11:50. Yousef exhaled, tapping a nervous beat on his knee from his seat. Only ten minutes left until his shift started and Yousef was willing to wait it out, to not seem so incredibly dull and boring with his evident boundless free time. Yousef drained the last of his bottle, and after playing with it for a little while, got up to throw it in the trash. Dunking it in from a few feet away, he smirked and cheered quietly to himself, turning around on the spot and bumping into someone. 

They were small, whoever they were, and were moving around him before he could even get out an apology, as if they could sense where Yousef would step next and plan accordingly. They wore the coffee shop uniform, bag on their shoulder. _Her_ shoulder, actually, as the person looked up and stared into Yousef’s eyes. 

His heart skipped a quick beat. Black eyes, plum lips, flushed cheeks, soft looking skin, beautiful, stunning, breathtaking. 

She moved around him fully, saying something but it felt like Yousef was underwater, he couldn’t hear anything, the voices in the shop bcoming murmurs in the distance. Yousef gave her an apology, and she walked behind the counter, taking over for a curly-haired man with striking eyebrows, who smiled widely at his coworkers appearance and clasped her on the shoulder as he walked into the back, ripping his apron off and yelling something back to her.

Yousef followed them unconsciously, his body humming in time with the girl’s hands, which flitted around gracefully across the counter and coffee beans, collecting and cleaning the place as if she were playing the piano at the same tempo as Yousef’s heartbeat.

Breaking through the fog that had briefly settled in his head, Yousef checked the time slyly on his wrist and decided starting his shift a few minutes early might not be such a terrible idea.

*

Checking out the shop after Jonas’s shift was always chaotic, the boy barely being able to keep himself standing, let alone the stock. Shifting through stray napkins and beans, Sana moved quickly to clear up some of the mess from the morning buzz. She already felt frazzled from walking into one of the people in here, the tall man. 

With gentle hands that brushed her delicately, as if she were almost special, exquisite. His eyes were onyx, and the brief moment she let herself be captive by them had Sana feeling jolted enough, and she scurried away quickly, set on cleaning up and forgetting, about the flood of _maybes_ and _what ifs_ that his eyes brought up.

A soft cough broke her careful attention on the cup she was cleaning, and looking up her hand faltered on the ceramic before she swiftly placed it back down, hot palms cooling on the cold marble.

Him. The boy with soft hands. And gems for eyes. And the kind voice. And the sweet smile. Oh God. 

“Hello. My name is Yousef Acar, I start working here today? I’m a couple minutes early, but I was wondering whether I could help out,” He grinned shyly and Sana was done. A flash of white teeth, the smile lines around his mouth, pink lips curved deliciously up and nope. Not in her place of work, she can’t have a crush on someone she would be working with day in, day out. Even if they worked different shifts, she would probably have to train him first for at least a week of shifts and that would be a disaster if she was always this distracted by just the line of his lips and the shift of his hair on his forehead. God, she thought she’d barely see Jonas anymore when his shift changed hours from hers, and here she is, three days a week spent catching up when his shift ends and hers begins for sometimes up to an hour. How she could possibly avoid this man when she held the busy shift hours was ridiculous.

Pursing her lips, and yelling at herself to pull her shit together, she replied “Sure thing, follow me.” And turned on her heels to the back room, not even casting a gaze behind her to see if he followed.

_No distractions. Be professional. You got this Sana._

A hand reaches ahead of her and pushes the door open. “Here, let me get that for you.”

_Fuck everything._

*

The boy from the earlier shift was tugging on a jacket when Yousef and Sana entered the backroom. His earphones blasted music that the boy was dancing energetically to, his arms flying around the room as he mouthed the words along with the song.

The girl Yousef was following, with the pretty eyes and soft-looking skin, moved towards the curly haired guy, yanking out an earphone and startling the boy so much he jumped and screamed uncertainly at her.

“Sana! The fuck!” The boy clutched his chest just over his heart and breathed dramatically, running a head through his messy hair and fixing the collar of his jacket as the girl – Sana, her name is Sana, brilliant, dazzling, – smirked at him.

“Sorry Jonas,” _she wasn’t sorry in the slightest, look at her grin, God she’s beautiful,_ “just wanted to know if you wouldn’t mind keeping an eye up front while I teach the new guy here some stuff?” She leaned against one of the ovens and smiled sweetly at the boy, Jonas, and he huffed a laugh. Yousef was tempted to remind her of his name, maybe become friendly with them, avoid the standard awkward relationship coworkers had when they didn’t bother to know each other, but he held his tongue.

Grinning, Jonas nodded. “If I didn’t like you so much, my life would probably be a lot easier, eh Sans?” Laughing, he jogs out the room, throwing a peace sign over his shoulder to Sana and slapping a hand on Yousef’s shoulder as he leaves.

“Sorry about him,” the smile leaves her face briefly, but her lips are still quirked up as she looks Yousef in the eyes again, and Yousef vows there and then that he would do anything to make her smile like that himself. “Jonas is harmless but a little distracted sometimes.” She shifts some boxes across the tiny room, which are filled with ingredients for baked goods, onto the shelves above, while there’s a sink in the back corner with a dishwasher next to it, some hooks along the back wall, a prep table in the center and an oven to the side. The fridge was plugged in on the opposite wall, and the windows in the back let in abundant natural light, perfectly framing Sana’s face with an ethereal glow. 

“Now. Time to get to work, Yousef.” Sana smirked again, and Yousef knew this summer was going to be tough.

*

After explaining what the coffee shop bakes, the safety rules and hygiene regulations, basic upkeep manners, and how to deal with customers, Yousef should have felt bored out of his mind with all of the repeated information coming his way, considering he had definitely still retained this all from previous jobs, but he didn’t.

Sana explained everything to him, and he was stuck, enchanted by her. Her voice, her grace, her hands, her eyes, all of her compelled him more and more to focus solely on her, just the entirety of her. He felt a little guilty, since he could confess right there and then that he had the experience, more than enough to be frank, to both Sana and Jonas, save them the time and effort, but he couldn’t bring himself to give up Sana’s undivided attention.

Eventually she moved them from the back to the front, putting on a name badge and typing her apron securely around her waist. Yousef followed suit, and bumped into Jonas, who was chatting up some girls at the counter. 

“Hey, loverboy, get going. I owe you one,” Sana added as an afterthought, physically removing Jonas from behind the counter to the front door as the girls giggled and walked back to their seats. 

“Now now Sana dear, you know the only one I have eyes for is you,” Jonas says dramatically, winking before Sana literally shuts the door in his face and turns around without a word, Jonas’s laughter echoing behind her.

Yousef was lost. On one hand, it looked playful enough, like friends teasing one another, something Yousef’s done countless times without feeling anything romantic for the other person, but on the other hand, this is _Sana_. How can anyone look at her and not want the terms of endearment to be sincere? A pang in his stomach ached, and Yousef tried not to dwell too much when he could be entirely wrong.

But then another thought came to mind. How could Sana be single? Surely someone out there, a smart, wealthy, good-looking person would have swept in and wooed Sana thoroughly, enchanting her the way Yousef felt. And with that pit, his heart dropped, and he stopped his pointless daydreams about this coming summer’s possibilities.

Even if she weren’t in a relationship, if she was perfectly free to choose a partner, would she even pick him? Yousef, with the crooked nose, the weirdly high-pitched laugh, the funny haircut that he was scared to grow out or cut short, and the lanky form and hunched shoulders. 

Why would perfection settle for any less?

*

The trouble with summer shifts at a coffee shop was the buzz around the mid-afternoon, when the sun blazes and the people stream into the shop for relief. Soon enough, Sana and Yousef become overwhelmed with customers, and barely have a moment to breathe and keep up with the orders.

After Yousef fumbled on the espresso machine twice earlier during training – partially on-accident having brushed Sana’s hand, partially because he didn’t want her to stop showing him things and be forced to leave the bubble she created around them – Sana made the executive decision to be in charge of the drinks and leave Yousef to pass along orders to her, and work up Yousef’s confidence slowly with the basics first, at a much less intense hour of the day.

Sana has the drinks fairly under control, her experience evident in the way she mans the machines single-handedly, with barely a wait time despite the long line, while Yousef takes orders and deals with the change. 

Feeling a little useless, Yousef resigned himself to taking orders before forcing himself to get a grip, to not be a love-struck idiot and actual try to help out his coworker. Despite not breaking a sweat yet, it isn’t easy for even a woman like Sana to single-handedly manage every single order for long, and Yousef was determined to start helping out in as discrete a way as possible. God forbid, he actually gather attention from Sana at how he actually knows what he’s doing. 

So for the next ten or so drinks, Yousef managed to pump syrups, get ice, blend drinks and pour finished mixes into cups to try and not be too pointless.

And judging by the looks Sana was increasingly giving him after every order, where Yousef would call for them but prep the drinks now, when he would hand her the exact thing she needed before she could reach for it, Yousef wasn’t as subtle as he thought he was. But the smiles he received in return from Sana was like looking into the sun and feeling pure and good again, and Yousef could barely say no to that, could he?

*

Even though it was the busiest shift Sana had endured that year so far, with Yousef’s help she actually managed to keep up and get drinks out without too much of a fuss. A quick re-make here or there was alright, and Sana handed out her last drink, an iced mint Frappuccino, to a waiting girl’s hands, receiving a pleasant smile and thanks for the hard work. 

Fixing her apron, Sana turned to check up on Yousef. He had taken to making some drinks on his own, which normally Sana would shut down having seen his earlier mishaps, but surprisingly – for his quietness and fumbles earlier – Yousef knew his stuff.

Regardless of the drink, Yousef constantly surprised Sana with being able to work out what it needed, either reading a recipe list discretely out of sight or just guessing Sana wasn’t sure, but he wasn’t exactly lagging behind anymore, sending out orders rapid-fire. 

And it wasn’t just Yousef’s confidence and support in helping Sana out that made her heart warm and her body buzz excitedly whenever they moved in sync around one another, but his cute smiles sent her way, the way his eyes sought hers when calling an order out, even the offhand puns about coffee whenever she seemed a little too stressed out.

Like when Sana needed Yousef to grab extra ice out of the backroom urgently for the next three drinks, and he turned to her, dead serious, and told her he would do _whatever beans necessary_ to make it happen, before chuckling and running through the door before Sana could throw her dish towel at him in affectionate exasperation.

Or how when she accidently snapped at him to pass her a new bottle of caramel syrup. Yousef grabbed it for her, telling her how he’s never tried caramel but thought it might be _worth a shot_. Helplessly, Sana groaned out a laugh, her guilt melting away with the warmth of Yousef heart, and his answering smile was blinding, her stomach turning on itself and her hands slipping before she quickly grabbed the cup she was working on and got back to work.

But now, the tide had settled, and almost every customer was settled again, the heat dying down outside and the shop winding down.

Sana turned to Yousef, smiling in relief at their first break in God knows how long, hours at this point? She was about to offer him a break to go get fresh air when she noticed he was finishing up his last order using the espresso machine, for the elderly man waiting nearby. His hands steady as he used the lever on the _espresso machine_? Sana frowned, looking closely at him. 

Like it was second nature, he moved swiftly and worked confidently, like he had all day really. Very impressive for his first day, very. He knew a lot without being told, but he definitely needed being told when she first showed him the machines, his fluttering hands spilling milk everywhere barely a few hours ago.

Yousef turned and amiably smiled to the elderly man, who warmly took the cup and sat down. Finally just the two of them again, Sana turned to Yousef and stood close, intimidatingly close. Arms folded, gazes directly meeting, Sana tilted her head to the side, and smiled pleasantly.

“Mind if I ask you a few questions, Yousef?”

*

Fuck.

Yousef wasn’t one to sweat or ramble typically, but something about the tiny ball of wit and intellect before him made him question what he did in a previous life to be cursed to act like such a fool in front of her.

_Be calm, be casual._ “Sure thing, what’s up?” Needing something to distract himself, Yousef grabs his rag from his apron pocket and wipes up the mess from their hours of work, the stray milk, syrup, and water dripping on the countertops around them.

“What did you do before you came to work here? Studying?” Sana follows in perfect rhythm to wherever Yousef moves, like they’re playing a game, or dancing. He wipes his brow, smiling at her fleetingly over his shoulder as he moves things around.

“Oh, no! I work during the year, kindergarten teacher, and all that jazz. But, summers are long and the kid’s are all gone, so that’s why I’m here!”

“Interesting. What did you do before, during summer I mean?” Her face was innocent enough, but Yousef still felt butterflies erupt in his stomach. He couldn’t let her figure it out. 

_Play it cool, Acar, you got this._

“Well, I just used to sit around, hang out with friends, help out at my parent’s house and fix things, maybe plan out the next year’s events for the kids, that kind of thing really.” That was casual right? Vague, not really a lie, and if anything it was interesting enough to distract Sana from probing further into Yousef’s previous employments.

Yousef moved onto cleaning the floor, grabbing a mop and quickly clearing up a stain something fallen from an order earlier in the shift, maybe even from Jonas’s shift. His gaze steered clear of Sana, hoping she would drop the subject and maybe talk about something else, like her favorite restaurant, and her schedule for the summer, and her type of men, and her relationship status. 

“That’s cool. You’re pretty good at making coffee though you know, the espresso machine especially. Funny that, how you barely knew how to use it before, and now you’re definitely confident working on espresso orders. Really interesting, huh?”

Fuck, she knows.

*

Oh, Sana knows. No way someone can waltz into a coffee shop and know how to use the espresso machine, that thing took even Sana at least three shifts to be completely confident with. Sana could see the beads of sweat on Yousef’s forehead, his hands clutching the mop so tightly his knuckles were white.

Taking pity, Sana sighed, and motioned into the backroom for Yousef to follow her. She grabbed the mop gently from his hands, smoothing over the abused knuckles softly. Yousef’s neck snapped up, looking her in the eyes for the first time since she started asking questions, and saw an ocean within them. Nothing fiery or full of rage, just understanding, or kindness rather, and Yousef followed her.

The backroom felt like a closet now, and the hot air suffocating, the light blinding. Sana turned to him, hands on hips and frown in place and Yousef never felt like more of a disappointment than right then. A second past, and then another, and suddenly Yousef couldn’t stand it any longer.

“I’m sorry, I lied to you, obviously. I’ve worked in a coffee shop before – not much, but enough to know what I’m doing. I thought you read my application and knew but you started showing me stuff and I couldn’t stop you, not when you –” Yousef caught his tongue before he could spew out anything more. Why did he think he could get away with it? A whole summer pretending to be a new hand, it would have driven him up the wall, pretending to be anything but himself in front of Sana.

He looks up, daring to make eye contact with Sana, expecting to see disgust, or anger, or apathy, anything really. All he got was confusion in her bright eyes, her cute frown set because of bewilderment rather than rage.

“But… why? You could have avoided listening to an entire afternoon of things you already know! I feel like an idiot,” Sana folds her arms across her chest, protectively and looks away, somewhere behind Yousef self-consciously, and Yousef feels his stomach drop to his feet.

He clamors and fumbles for an explanation, eventually just blurting out the first thing he could think of. 

“No it’s my fault, please don’t be upset Sana, I just wanted you to keep talking to me –”

Well, fuck.

*

Wait, what?

“What?” Sana didn’t quite understand exactly what this guy ever actually meant. One minute he was close to breaking his hand on a machine, the next he was handing her everything she’d need for any drink without a sweat, all the while having never worked at a coffee shop before but he actually has and is really just a giant mess?

“I said –”

“No, no I got what you said, give me a minute to process it first though.”

Yousef wisely kept his mouth shut for a minute.

“Alright, so what you’re saying is that you knew this entire time what you were doing?”

“Yes.”

“And you didn’t want to admit to it because you wanted me to still keep talking to you about things you already knew?” 

A slight pause, somewhat hesitant. “Yes.”

“And this is because you want to be, what, friends?”

Longer silence, very hesitant. “… _Yes_?”

Sana threw her hands in the air, exasperated and tired. “Yousef, I’m serious, what is this about? You felt embarrassed then, because it was too late to tell me the truth? It’s fine, don’t worry, I’ll make sure to put you on your own shifts from now on,” Sana turned to brush past him, when Yousef stepped back and blocked the door, hands clenched at his sides over own inability to say what he actually wants to. He felt like he was being held down underwater, unable to speak clearly and his mind a haze of half-formed thoughts and dreams and hopes. 

“I like you.” Soft, resigned, like he’s accepted his fate and is sure of the consequences.

Sana’s neck snapped backwards like a startled bird. Her eyes immediately sought his, and Yousef sighed, his energy gone from his body from this afternoon trying to be smooth when he very clearly is not.

“When I first saw you I thought you were just so interesting and intimidating and pretty and I thought maybe if it looked like I needed the help you’d hang around me a little more, and we could be friends outside of work or something, but that’s wrong I know! I shouldn’t be coercing you into spending time with me, I promise I’m not a creep like that, I’m just an idiot,” Yousef could probably go on, but Sana’s smirk stopped him.

“What’s ‘or something’ mean?”

“Or something? What? What do you mean?” Yousef frowned, his eyes squinting at Sana trying to understand her nonsense question.

“You said ‘friends outside of work, or something’. Do you mean you want to be something other than friends with me?” Sana’s smile was electric and sharp and Yousef stood up straight, face pale and mouth gaping.

“Oh, that, haha, well you see, um, I – ”

Sana quirked one perfect eyebrow up.

Yeah, no point bullshitting.

“I’d like to take you on a date Sana.”

A flash of white. The curl of plum lips, dimples and sunshine and bright eyes. A rose swirled in cream coffee. 

“Then I’d like to say yes.”

*

Summer. Endless nights spent feeling the cool breeze after a long hot day. Finishing up classes, working through problems and essays and exams. Going to work, grinding coffee and saving up. 

Getting ice cream, watching the sun set, walking around at night. Winding down at home, watching a movie, reheating food from the fridge, and stretching out on the couch to relax.

Sana lifts her feet up, Yousef settles down beside her with his plate of piping hot food, pulling Sana’s feet into his lap as Sana presses play on the TV.

It wasn’t a bad summer really.

Not at all.


End file.
